The Path of Peace: Walking the Western Front Way

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The First World War, in contrast, was a faraway war, with American forces only fighting in the final months as subordinate forces to the Old World powers . This is an outstanding piece of work by one of the UK's most distinguished educationalists and political historians. Intermixed in this is the agony and ecstasy of long walking journeys/ pilgrimages and what they reveal to and about us. Always been interested in this subject and it was hard to read (the numbers involved are simply mind numbing) I know it was a hard slog for the author but I felt he was a little self indulgent in dwelling on his difficulties physical and emotional especially as it was obvious how much of a privilaged life he led and a lot of the time he was enjoying gourmet meals and fine wine while making contact with people of influence who wouldn't show many of us the time of day.

We not only get an awful lot of detail about aspects of the First World War that are likely to be unfamiliar to most readers (certainly me), we also get to share in a romantic dream. Instead, this blend of history, travelogue and deep personal reflection makes for a moving as well as interesting and entertaining read.This was given to me as a birthday present, and was the first of Seldon's books I've read (he has written or co-written many, mostly political). To support the “Western Front Way”-initiative the author in the late summer of 2021 set out to walk the whole length “from the Vosges to the sea” . To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. After that, he wrote, he hoped to “send every man and child in Western Europe on pilgrimage along that Via Sacra, so that they might think and learn what war means from the silent witnesses on either side”. It is accepted by you that Daunt Books has no control over additional charges in relation to customs clearance.

His self-doubt and the physical hardships (he was sixty-eight at the time), establish a profound empathy with those who lost their lives in the battles on the Western Front. With such a noble enterprise, it is difficult to criticise this book in any way, but in some ways I did find it awkward to read.It is impossible not to be moved by a chaplain’s description of the last moments of a 19-year-old who had been court-martialled and sentenced to be shot: “I held his arm tight to reassure him and then he turned his blindfolded face to mine and said in a voice which wrung my heart, ‘Kiss me, sir, kiss me’, and with my kiss on his lips, and ‘God has you in his keeping’ whispered in his ear, he passed on into the Great Unseen.